A Keeper and Her Charge
by annie1994
Summary: There are a few simple rules of being a keeper, the two most important being 'keep your charge safe at all costs, and do not fall in love with them'. It would appear that Ami failed on both parts. Oops. Follow Gaara and Ami on a coming of age adventure, where they find themselves, redemption, and love. Gaara X OC. Rewrite of Kazekage's Keeper. Please read and review!
1. Simple

_Ever since Ami had been moved to Sunagakure at age six, she'd only seen it rain about a couple dozen times. It was an event of awe inspiring proportions when it happened. The rain falling in Suna was like a tidal wave crashing over a small village made of huts: destructive, powerful, and for some reason it drew you in to watch with a hypnotic effect._

 _That was the best reason Ami had for staying out on the retaining wall's edge while the rain poured down in buckets. She was fifteen, certainly she knew better, but there was something that kept her seated even as the rain drenched her down to her very bones._

 _Perhaps it was the chance to get away from everything for a moment. She loved protecting Gaara, honestly she did. But like everyone there were times when a break was needed, a fresh breath of air. Or, in this particular case, taking a walk while her charge was working on paperwork, and not bothering to come in when the sky started to crackle with thunder._

 _Soon the ground would burst into life, and the desert would be covered in flora and fauna alike. Ami personally couldn't wait, for the beautiful event, though she knew that the life from this rain would soon enough retreat once again. Leaving the desert a blank slate once again._

 _Focusing on her breathing for a moment, Ami continued to muse on the meaning of all these things brought on by the rain, when she noticed a distinct lack rain falling on her. A glance upward brought the sight of a sand 'umbrella', of sorts, protecting her from the rain, and once Ami stopped focusing on her breathing and started focusing on the chakra flows around her, it was easy enough to figure out who had just appeared behind her._

" _You're going to catch your death out here, Ami." The Kazekage's voice was gruff, as he extended a hand to help her up. "Come back inside. What in the world are you doing up here anyways?"_

 _Ami couldn't help but smile as she took her charges hand and hoisted herself up, "Went for a walk, ended up on the retaining wall, decided to stay when it started raining." The blonde shrugged her shoulders, quite aware that her explanation wouldn't offer the reasoning that Gaara often wanted. Ignoring his furrowed brow at her obviously inadequate answer, Ami made her way down the retaining wall and back to the offices where Gaara was supposed to be working._

* * *

" _I told you this would happen." Gaara's tone was not gloating, nor was it smug—it was hard to be either of those when his Keeper had been reduced to a pale, sweaty, coughing lump with a severe fever. It was also hard to be intimidated by the woman as she did her best to glare at him while a nurse was inserting an IV needle in her arm. Overall, the teenager found himself more annoyed at all of this than anything else. Really, this bout of pneumonia could have been avoided in one of two ways. If Ami hadn't gone out for a walk in the rain, and if she'd visited a doctor when she'd caught a bad cold the day after instead of putting it off so she could attend to her duties of protecting him._

 _There was an attempt to make some sort of sarcastic rebuttal that was cut short by another bout of violent coughing. "No one likes a smartass, Gaara." The teenager leant back in her hospital bed against the pillows and let out a raspy sigh. "You need to make sure to stay safe while I'm in here—no doing anything dangerous, make sure that Kankuro's around all the time to look after you."_

 _His brow furrowed at her words, Gaara gave a small nod to the nurse as she left to give them some privacy before her spoke, "Ami, you've been with me while I've worked since I've become Kazekage. The most dangerous thing I do is handle paperwork, and I assure you that my sand armor will protect me from any papercuts. Don't worry about me, I'll be alright." Offering the other a rare smile as she frowned at him from the bed, Gaara stood up from his seat. "I have to go to work, but I will come back afterwards. Just try to rest."_

 _The words did little to comfort the chronic worrier as she watched her charge leave her hospital room. Really, Ami didn't have much of a reason to be concerned, once you looked at it logically. Things had changed radically in the past two years. While Gaara wasn't exactly popular throughout the village, and there were those who objected to him being Kazekage, it wasn't as if there were still assassins trying to kill him. Shukaku breaking through had dropped to an all time low, and now that he was Kazekage and not going out and about on missions, Gaara was safer than ever. Still, Ami had been his protector since she was six, and stepping out of that role, even for just a little while to get better was not an easy feat. Neither was getting rid of the feeling that she needed to be by Gaara's side to protect him from danger, no matter how low the risk was._

 _In fact, as the night progressed and her fever worsened, Ami couldn't help but be worried as she drifted in and out of consciousness. Picking up on a few words and phrases from the doctors and nurses around her, hearing things like 'explosions', 'the kazekage', 'kidnapping', and 'he might be dead', it was no surprise that when Ami's fever broke that she bolted upright in bed in a cold sweat and asked the following question; "Where's Gaara?"._

* * *

"Where's Gaara?" hands on her hips, toes tapping in her annoyance, Ami surveyed the empty office before her with narrowed eyes before finally settling her gaze on her charge's secretary. "Have you seen the Kazekage?"

Used to these sorts of conversation, the other woman simply gave a nod as she placed a new stack of paperwork on the Kazekage's desk. "The Kazekage asked me to tell you that he went for a walk to help clear his head. He said you'd know where to find him, Ami." Smiling to herself as she heard the familiar, annoyed click of the blonde woman's tongue as she walked out of the office and headed to the roof of the Kazekage's tower.

Gaara stared out at his village, standing on top of the Kazekage's tower, knowing that in just a few moments his 'Keeper' would be right next to him. Ami had been assigned to keep him safe when he had Shukaku inside of him, and even now that the beast was gone her clan of keepers had let her stay with him. Well, if you wanted to be technical about it, he had to offer an alliance between his village and where she was originally from, but it seemed to be a small price to pay to keep her by his side.

They had met when they were six, and he just couldn't see his life without her. Even when he considered the fact that the two of them didn't become friends until he was about thirteen, after Naruto had changed his life. She had kept him safe all these years, and in her Gaara found a comforting reminder that he could always change for the better. The red head felt a familiar chakra surround him like a warm cloud, not at all surprised when Ami landed right next to him. A slight smile came onto his face, keeping his eyes focused on the setting sun, not looking towards her as she rested her arm on his shoulder, "It took you longer than usual. Aren't you a bit young to be losing your touch?"

A fake scowl spread on her features, Ami did her best not to laugh. To most people, Gaara seemed as if he had no sense of humor, but Ami had spent long enough around him to realize that most jokes he told were small and dry. "I was on my supper break, Gaara. It only took a few minutes to track you down once I came back. If we're talking about losing our touches though, maybe I ought to bring up the fact that you keep hiding in the same place. Ever thought that it might be you that's too young to lose your touch?" Smiling while the man rolled his eyes, Ami directed her gaze to the sun as it set below the horizon, casting a wonderful reddish orange hue over the tan and brown village.

Lights come on one by one, people opening their windows to let the cold desert night air into their homes. Mothers were dragging their children back home, the small children digging their heels in the ground to try and keep from leaving their friends… she could definitely see why Gaara came here to watch his village, the view was amazing and it really brought life to the desert and all that surrounded it.

She let her arm slide off of his shoulder she brushed a stray lock of long hair out of her face before looking up at her charge, "So, do you want to call it a night and go home for the day? I don't think anyone would fault you for going in early for once." The fact that most people would probably be happy that Gaara was taking a bit of time for himself went unmentioned, Ami knowing perfectly well that trying to convince him to take a break would lead to him to only feel as if he needed to work harder.

Really, Ami would never understand how this man's mind worked sometimes.

Gaara cast a sideways glance towards his companion, before giving her a small nod. "I think I might. I've finished up most of the meetings for today—I was thinking of just taking some paperwork home and working on it there." He supposed that to most people, that wouldn't be considered much of a break, but Gaara found that he really didn't care much about breaks and the like as long as at the end of the day, he knew his village was taken care of.

With a roll of her eyes, Ami found herself thinking 'good enough' rather than pushing for him to take a real night off. At least this way he probably wouldn't work through the entire night. "Sounds good to me. Let's get going, Gaara."

Silent as Ami tugged on the sleeve of his white robe, Gaara allowed himself to be essentially dragged by his bodyguard back to his home. The most amusing thing about this, Gaara thought, was the simple fact that none of the villagers gave them a second glance. It wasn't terribly surprising, given the fact that Ami had been by his side almost every day since he was a young boy. Presumably, everyone had simply gotten used to the sight of the blonde and him together.

His brow furrowed as he watched the back of Ami's head, as she led him back home—Gaara found himself reflecting on their relationship through the years. When he was younger he simply saw her as a nuisance who would follow him around day and night, and begrudgingly allowed her to do in light of the fact that she was rather good at making sure he was able to regain control on the occasions Shukaku broke free. After he met Naruto, he'd slowly begun to consider her an ally, and then a friend. Now? She was his closest companion. Even after Shukaku was extracted and she'd had every reason to go back to her home village, she had wanted to stay with him and make sure he was safe.

Feelings for Gaara were a confusing ordeal, and truthfully he hadn't thought all that much about how he felt about Ami. It never seemed that important to dwell on such a thing. She was his companion, and his protector.

It was simple, and for now it was good enough.


	2. To put the past behind us

Nightmares were a fairly common occurrence in the Kazekage mansion. Gaara had them, Kankuro had them, Temari had them when she used to live there, and even if she didn't like to admit it Ami had them as well.

Tonight was no exception. The dream was nothing unusual for the young woman. It wasn't something she liked to dwell on, the fact that she was unable to protect Gaara from the akatsuki. She knew that no one really blamed her for the fact that Shukaku was extracted from Gaara, especially not the people that mattered the most to her.

Still, she found the weight still resting on her shoulders, and everything that happened still haunted her dreams.

Her first memories were training to learn how to be a keeper. Long sessions of memorizing the different ways to keep demons under control, how to calm down a charge that has been taken over by their demon, and how to teach her charge how to control the demon inside him and harness that energy. Really, her education had been quite different than most keepers, she was the first to be assigned to a jinchuuriki, and most of her fellow keepers in training were assigned to people who'd been implanted with less powerful demons.

She wasn't supposed to end her training so early, but once word had arrived that Yashamaru, the man who was supposed to take care of Gaara had died, she'd been sent off early to make sure that Gaara had someone looking after him.

It was a strange thing to try and describe to someone else. For as long as she could remember, her only goal in life was to keep Gaara safe. It was all she'd ever been told to strive for, and all that she'd ever tried to do when she'd met him.

The fact that she'd failed, even when she knew that realistically she wouldn't have been much help during his initial abduction, left a sour taste in her mouth.

Swearing under her breath as she got out of her bed, Ami walked out of her bedroom and into the shared bath, splashing her face with cold water and using her sleeve to dry off. A sideways glance as she heard a rustling from the doorway showed her that she wasn't the only one awake tonight. With a sigh, she straightened herself up and looked towards her charge with a frown. "I thought the reason you left early was so you'd get some rest. What're you doing up?"

"I left early because I could finish what work that was left just as easily at home." His brow furrowed, Gaara motioned for her to follow him to his office where he'd been working. He wasn't terribly wonderful at all of the comforting that friends were supposed to do, but he was pretty sure that his presence would help a bit in that endeavor, rather than just leaving her alone.

The Kazekage sat down at his chair, watching the blonde helped herself to a glass of water from a pitcher on the corner of the desk. There weren't many reasons for Ami being awake at this time of night. If he knew her well, which he did, he knew that the two most likely things to get her out of bed so far before the sun rose would be if she had a mission, or if she had a nightmare. Clearly she didn't have a mission, Gaara certainly would have known about it, so that only left one other alternative. "You had a nightmare." Arms crossed as he frowned at the woman in front of him, Gaara continued, "What was it about?"

There's a frown at the fact that he was able to read her so quickly. They'd taught her when she was younger that it was hard to be too close to your charge, but Ami would argue that Gaara being able to tell what was on her mind was not something any keeper would really want.

It was a little annoying really, that she had barely any secrets when it came to Gaara.

With a small sigh she sat atop the desk, taking a sip of the tepid water in her cup before speaking, "It's the same one as usual, the one where you die." There was a shrug of her shoulders as Gaara visibly blanched at her words. The event wasn't something that they spoke about often, it wasn't exactly a happy topic for either of them.

There was a few things that Gaara wanted to say to the woman sitting next to him.

That she shouldn't keep blaming herself after so many years. That it wasn't her fault. That it was silly of her to have nightmares about it when he ended up coming back.

Still, he bit his tongue, simply because they'd had this sort of conversation so many times before. There weren't any new ways for it to go, unless one of them changed their mind about their view of events.

Gaara saw his death and resurrection as a literal clean slate from the universe. His first life was one where he'd hurt many people, and had struggled to move past that. This new one was one where he could say he'd devoted his entire life to his people. This new life was a new chance to be the person he wanted to be.

Ami saw it all as a failure on her part to protect him.

The two radically different view points made it all the harder to find a middle ground and have a good conversation about the events. Gaara had a feeling that he could make her see it his way somehow, but since his philosophy had always been 'actions speak louder than words', he hadn't been able to string together a way to make her see quite yet.

With a sigh, Gaara did the only thing he knew to in this situation; change the subject. "If you can't sleep, then maybe you can help me with the paperwork I've been trying to get done. I'd appreciate some help getting through all of it."

Ami raised her brow, silently questioning this sudden change in topic. More often than not when the topic of his death came up, a heated argument soon followed. Perhaps Gaara had simply given up on trying to sway her into seeing what happened as a good thing. Or maybe he simply just didn't feel up to arguing at the moment—either seemed fairly likely. "Alright, sure." Hopping off his desk and making herself more comfortable in a chair across from his, Ami reached for a rather large pile of mission reports to read through. Eyes skimming over a genin's report of a rather mundane D rank mission, Ami looked up expectantly as she heard Gaara say her name. Given how work oriented the man was, he probably had a good reason for interrupting her before she even really started on helping him.

"Do you remember that mission we took where we got snowed into that cave? Where you told me I was going to be Kazekage?" The redhead's mouth set into a thin line, his hands interlaced and resting atop his desk.

There was a nod from the blonde woman—honestly, how could she forget?

* * *

 _Gaara stared at the mouth of the cave, and took care not to turn around despite the small grunts of pain he heard from behind him. He and Ami had just gone on what was admittedly their hardest mission yet—their third S-rank, and while he was unharmed due to his sand and Keeper protecting him, Ami was definitely worse for the wear. The young man kept watch and stared outside the cave, taking care not to look behind him despite the hisses of pain he kept hearing._

 _The fifteen year old used his sand to poke at the fire to make sure it kept going, trying to keep the coldness from outside from coming in. He frowned even deeper when he saw the snow gently begin to fall outside, Gaara called back to the sixteen year old behind him. "Are you alright Ami?"_

" _I'm just peachy. " her sarcastic tone reverberated throughout the cave, causing Gaara to roll his eyes before she continued. "I'll be alright. Most of the cuts are superficial, I think, or at least I've had worse." Ami muttered curse words under her breath as she rubbed an antibiotic into her wounds before wrapping up her torso in bandages. The blonde reached for her tattered, once tan shirt that was now stained with the dark brown of dried blood, and put it on before she walked over to Gaara and sat next to him. Catching sight of what was happening outside the cave, she couldn't help but scowl, "It's snowing? Good god, we're going to have a hell of a time trying to make schedule on this mission, aren't we?"_

 _Watching as she took some of their rations out of her knapsack, Gaara caught the ones she tossed at him with ease, choosing to not respond to her complaint and rather offer some advice. "Sleep close to the fire tonight to keep warm. You need your rest." Taking a bite of what he had to admit was a horribly stale biscuit; Gaara washed it down with a swig of water. "Just be happy that it isn't a blizzard. We can get through the night like this."_

 _Gaara frowned a bit at the sight of his keeper, her shirt would hardly keep her warm in this weather, and her cloak had been lost in their retreat to the safety of this cave. Silent as he took off his own cloak and placed it on her shoulders, offering only a grunt in response to her thanks._

 _Ami stared over at Gaara, wondering if he knew or even wondered why they had been sent on so many rough missions lately. She had heard—or rather, had been eavesdropping- the counsel speak about testing his abilities as a shinobi to see if he would be a good Kazekage. Apparently this mission was the last in a series of tests to see if he could handle the job. She smiled when the redhead asked her why she was staring at him, "Have you even thought about why we've been on these rough missions lately? For the past two month's it's been nonstop A ranked missions and S ranked missions."_

" _Well, we are jonin Ami. These are the types of missions that we get sent on." Gaara sipped on his water, wondering where she was going with this. "Do you know any other reason they've been sending us on these missions?" Gaara pondered silently if the counsel was trying to get him killed—they'd done it before many times. Even if he hadn't let Shukaku out for about a year, he still wouldn't put it past some of the elders on the counsel to try and get him slaughtered._

 _The blonde blew a puff of air out of her mouth, directing it to blow her bangs out of her eyes—staying quiet until the puff of steam cleared from her field of vision. "I was listening into a counsel meeting, if we succeed in this mission they're probably going to make you Kazekage. Apparently you're the front runner." Ami chuckled a bit at the look of shock on his face, standing up and unfolding her sleeping bag before getting into it. She spoke playfully as she closed her eyes, "Anyways, I'm getting some sleep! You're on watch Lord Kazekage."_

 _Gaara directed his stare at the young woman next to him, watching her breathing slowly even out, her muscles relax one by one. He knew her. He knew how to tell when she was scared or nervous by the small hitch in her voice when she began sentences. He knew that when she began to pinch her earlobes, something was stressing her out._

 _The boy could tell when she was asleep by the way her chakra leveled out._

 _She was not asleep yet. Her chakra was still spiking every once in a while, due to pain he supposed, every time she shifted. "Ami. Do you think I'll be a good Kazekage?"_

 _Ami opened an eye to look at her charge, "Weren't you the one that said I needed rest?" groaning softly when Gaara muttered an apology, noticing how tense he seemed as he stared into the fire. He seemed to withdraw into himself from what Ami assumed was a mixture of nerves and the biting cold._

 _Suddenly she found herself remembering what he was. A fifteen-year-old boy. He was a kid. Hell, she was a kid too—she'd only just become sixteen two weeks ago. Ami spoke with as much confidence as she could muster while she rose into a sitting position, "You're going to be a wonderful Kazekage. I know it. Do you want to know why?"_

 _The redhead nodded slowly, wondering where all of her conviction came from all of a sudden. "I do. How are you so certain?" his sea-foam green eyes scanning her body language—there wasn't much to go off of, she seemed to be avoiding any unnecessary movements at the moment. She had a sort of knowing smile on her, like she was stating pure fact—her demeanor was almost as if he'd asked if it was snowing outside. Ami seemed positively certain._

" _Because you care. You care more than anyone else I know because you know what it's like to not care. You know what it is like to hate. You know what it is like to be consumed with sadness and loathing, and that's what's going to make you a good Kazekage. You're not disillusioned with the village. Half the council are set in the old ways, and the other half are probably too worn down to try and fight tradition. But you're going to keep trying anyways, because you want to make things better. Because you don't want anyone to go through what you have. I know you're going to be a great Kazekage, and if I didn't I wouldn't have supported you when you said you wanted to become one. Don't worry so much about what happened in the past, Gaara—move on and tackle the future." Reaching for her canteen and taking a swig of water, Ami wished very much that she could go to sleep—but placating Gaara's fears was a priority at the moment. She was his keeper, she was supposed to make sure that he was at peace._

 _Gaara stared at her as she spoke, wondering how she was able to speak with such certainty about his actions in the future. Although, he had to admit she did know him pretty well. "I've got another question. You stop being my keeper once I can handle Shukaku correct?" seeing her nod, he continued on with what was on his mind, "Will you leave after that?"_

 _The blonde's smile fell a bit at that question—she wasn't quite sure of what she should say. She hadn't lied to him yet, and didn't plan on starting, but at the moment she didn't have any sort of legitimate answer. Staring pensively out of the mouth of the cave, Ami spoke slowly, trying to choose her words. "I don't know. I've spent a little more than half of my life in Suna, most of my memories are in that village… so to leave would be really hard. Plus, you're all I know as strange as it sounds. I mean, I was trained to fight for you and protect you. Even if we haven't been good friends for a long time, you mean a lot to me. So I don't know. But, I'll be here as long as you think you need me, even if you're able to completely control Shukaku."_

 _Looking back at the other, Gaara surveyed the smile on her face he did his best to mimic it, though his felt much less natural than hers. Her answer did make him feel a bit better though, if only just by a bit. "Go to sleep. I won't bother you anymore tonight. Thank you Ami."_

 _Watching her lay down once more, the redhead felt her chakra levels even out in just a few minutes—the corners of his mouth turning downwards as he watched her tremble on the floor of the frigid cave. Gaara took off his gourd, then his scarlet overcoat—using his sand to drape the warm thing over her. The boy scooted a bit closer to the fire to fight off the cold he was now feeling, but not minding it so much at the moment._

 _Maybe he would make a good Kazekage. At the very least, he'd have Ami by his side to aide him._

* * *

"Yeah, I definitely remember." Ami adjusted her position in the seat to be a bit more comfortable, sensing she was in for some sort of talking to. "What about it?"

Gaara leant back in his chair, hands falling in his lap before he spoke, "You had the confidence in me, and said that I would be a good Kazekage. You said that I was a good person, even though I had failed this village several times before, and had attacked you many times when we were younger. You knew that I'd be a good Kazekage, and you promised to stay by my side as long as I needed you."

The woman frowned, eyes narrowing as she nodded at his words. He wasn't wrong, but Ami was still searching for the reason behind this lecture.

"You saw things differently than me, at that point I still thought of myself as a beast, and you knew I was not. Later, I realized that you were right, and I wasn't a monster." Gaara held his hand up to silence her, as he saw Ami open her mouth to speak when she realized where he was going with all of this. "You cannot keep defining yourself because of one singular event in the past, Ami. My faith in your ability to protect me has not wavered since then, and it never will. You've done your best every day that I've known you, and have never given up no matter what the challenge was. Keeping this weight on your shoulders won't help you, it won't make you stronger, it will only bog you down. You need to let go and start moving on."

Ami's brow furrowed, not happy in the least at the direction this conversation was going, or for that matter, that her own advice was being used against her. Really though, what made her the least happy was that she saw his point. "I get what you're trying to say…" she allowed her voice to trail off just a bit, emotions making her throat tighten just enough where it hurt to speak. Ami wanted to say that it wasn't so simple to put it behind her, but that would be silly. Of all people Gaara knew that struggle. So instead she settled for another statement. "I'll try. Okay? I'll try to let it go."

It seemed like a monumental task, now that she thought about it. That one failure was what she'd been using these past years to fuel her progress and drive herself to become a better protector for Gaara. To put it behind her did not seem easy, though as she directed her sight towards her charge, Ami realized that she wouldn't have to do it by herself.


	3. Infatuation

Kankuro wasn't entirely sure what he was expecting when he came into his little brother's home office. But seeing Ami dead asleep in the armchair in front of Gaara's desk while Gaara was working on his paperwork was not on that list. "You two have a late night?" the brunette stooped down to pick up the papers strewn about in Ami's lap and place them on Gaara's desk.

"Neither of us could sleep, so Ami helped me with some paperwork." His brow furrowed at the sight of the pile left on his desk, all the paper's Ami hadn't gone through yet. "She didn't get all that far, but she got through a few mission reports before falling asleep at least." There was a small shrug of his shoulders—he at least had managed to get through a good stack of papers himself, and that would certainly make today's work easier. A brief glance towards his ex-keeper showed that she was still fast asleep, prompting Gaara to re-focus his attention onto his brother and go on speaking. "Did you need something, Kankuro?"

With a shake of his head, Kankuro sat down in the chair beside Ami's, "No—this is just usually the time you two are up and about so I figured I'd check in. Couldn't find you in your rooms so I had a feeling you'd be here." Frowning just a bit at the sight of Ami, still dead asleep despite the fact the sun's rising rays were coming in through the window. Really, she must have been exhausted to still be asleep, which certainly didn't bode well in regards to how tired his brother must be, "So you didn't get any sleep last night? If you'd like, I can handle your meetings this morning so you can get some rest."

Tapping his pen on the desk, Gaara pondered the proposal before offering a quick shake of his head, "No, I haven't slept, but I need to be there for my meetings this morning. I'll get some rest during lunch." He frowned once again at his sleeping bodyguard, "Though, I'd appreciate it if you would fill in for Ami until she wakes up, I'm thinking she needs her rest."

"Yeah—I can do that. How about you go and get ready for work, and I'll grab us some breakfast to take to the office." Kankuro offered his younger brother a grin before turning on his heel and stepping out of the office towards the kitchen to make some toast for the two of them.

Gaara paused while he gathered up the papers he'd been working on last night, wondering what exactly to do with Ami while she was so fast asleep. Moving her would probably wake her up, and he doubted she'd be happy with him for trying to go to work without her. He finally settled on grabbing a blanket from the bedroom and draping it over her, and then leaving to go get changed into his Kazekage robes.

* * *

The redhead tapped his index finger on his teacup, breathing in the scent of the cup of coffee on his desk. All of his appointments and meetings that morning had come and gone, and Ami had still not come to join him at the office. He was almost surprised by that fact until he considered the other fact that she usually didn't sleep until he did, and his sleep cycle was terrible. Usually though, if he tried to sneak away she was back by his side within ten minutes—a scowl on her face and a nagging tone in her voice.

He'd be annoyed if he weren't so fond of the blonde woman. Taking a sip of his tea when he heard a frantic and incredibly familiar voice curse as someone ran down the hall, his aquamarine eyes raised up just in time to see Ami burst through the door of his office. She looked disheveled, and if his memory served him right then she was still wearing the clothes she fell asleep in. "Well good morning. Did you sleep well?"

With a very pronounced frown on her face, not caring all too much about the fact that she'd gotten several confused stares on her rush over, Ami sat herself down at the edge of Gaara's desk and took a long sip of his coffee without asking permission. "This coffee is mine now, by the way." Her blonde brow furrowed at the amused expression on Gaara's face. "How come you didn't wake me up when you left? You can't just sneak off and not have a guard, Gaara—it's not safe."

"You looked like you needed some sleep, so I let you sleep. I've heard that's how it's supposed to work." A soft sigh escaped the man as he saw Ami's lips pull into a thin line of disapproval. His sense of humor was apparently not appreciated at the moment. "I wasn't alone, Kankuro came with me." He frowned just a bit as he looked up and realized that his brother wasn't with him at the moment, "I believe he stepped out for lunch."

With that bit of information, Ami allowed herself to relax. If Kankuro was with Gaara at least, that meant that Gaara was safe. She took another sip of the coffee she'd commandeered before finally relenting, "Alright—I suppose there's been no harm done." Well, with the small exception of her pride, but she could live with that. "Were you able to get a lot of work done last night?"

"A bit—not as much as I would have liked. You finishing a few of those smaller reports helped though." He poured himself another cup of coffee, deciding not to comment on the fact that she'd taken his first one.

She doubted that she helped all that much, seeing as she fell asleep just a little bit after starting to work with him on those reports—but Ami wasn't going to argue with praise if he wished to deliver it. "Happy to be of assistance. Have you got anything big to work on now that you need help with?"

With a small shake of his head, he passed her the rest of the mission reports from the night before, "Nothing big to work through no; I need to read through a few things from the council, but it isn't that bad. If you could keep working through the small mission reports though I would appreciate it."

As she nodded and hopped off his desk to sit in one of the chairs across from him, Gaara offered Ami a smile. The woman went above and beyond her duties as a bodyguard; he had to give her credit for that. Looking through the stack of papers on his desk, Gaara made his way through a few before scowling severely at one in particular from the council. It wasn't anything new at this point—the same old request that he needed to find a wife, preferably someone from a different village to strengthen Suna's ties with the outside world. With his brow furrowed Gaara tossed the scroll rather unceremoniously back onto the desk. If he were younger and not in control of his anger, Gaara had a feeling he would be ripping the document up right now.

"You alright there Gaara?" it was a bit of an unnecessary question, just going by the expression on his face. She reached out and took the scroll from his desk, scanning through the document to see what was making Gaara so bothered. "They want you to get married huh? Got anyone in mind?" an amused smile on her face, Ami ignored the slight tightening feeling in her throat at the idea of him getting married. That was an issue to deal with later.

The redhead plucked the scroll from her hands, tossing it into the trashcan using his sand. He paused, not entirely sure how to answer her question. Gaara wasn't much of a romantic, but he certainly knew he wasn't enamored with anyone at the moment and that he would like to marry someone he was compatible with at the very least, rather than some random woman from another village who would serve as the bridge between Suna and said village. Though— if it were the council's choice Gaara was fairly sure that they'd have him get married to the first woman who said yes.

If he was thinking of women he wouldn't mind spending the rest of his life with, Ami was the first to come to mind. Though, he couldn't quite say that was out of his infatuation for her as it was from the simple fact that as his companion for so long, he couldn't quite see his life without her.

When he felt Ami poke the kanji on his forehead to get his attention, the scowl was quick to grown on his face, "Please don't poke me Ami." Gaara swatted her hand away gently, a bit bothered by the fact that he'd spaced out so much that he hadn't noticed her cross the room to him. "No one really comes to mind, I think that the council will just have to keep waiting for an answer." There was a beat of silence, the man feeling just a bit guilty about the white lie he just told before continuing to speak, "I'd like to be in love with whoever I marry, or at least have some sort of feelings for them rather than just marry for an alliance."

Ami's green eyes widened considerably at his statement. It wasn't that it was a strange sentiment—honestly she doubted there were few people who would disagree with the fact that love or romantic feelings were important in a marriage. It was the fact that it was Gaara saying he wanted these things that surprised her. Honestly it was almost as if the man sitting before her was completely different than the boy she started guarding all those years ago.

He'd tried to explain to her once how him being abducted and then dying and being brought back was a good thing in his eyes—that his rebirth had given him the chance to start fresh and be the person he truly wanted to be, and for the first time she could begin to truly understand what he meant, and look past what she considered to be her greatest and most painful failure.

* * *

 _Gaara stared down at the woman before him as she lay in the hospital bed. He'd been rescued and effectively brought back to life because of Naruto and the team he'd managed to muster, leaving to Gaara to figure out what to do with this new chance at mortality. His gaze fixed at a small faded stain on the white hospital sheets covering his now ex-keeper, Gaara did his best to think of a way to break the news of what had happened to Ami. Her fever had only recently broken, and while the doctors told him that she was all but recovered from her bout of pneumonia, he wasn't sure whether or not the truth of what had happened would hurt the healing process she was going through._

 _Still, when the teenage girl's eyes began to flutter open, Gaara knew he very well couldn't lie to her. Not out of some moral obligation to be honest, but because he knew she'd be able to tell. It was her job to be able to read him like a book, and she did it well. "How are you feeling?" Gaara did his best to offer a smile that was natural and would be comforting, but he had a feeling that since the act was so out of character it only prompted Ami to look a bit confused and frightened upon waking up._

" _I'm okay—" Ami found herself cutting her sentence short simply because of the off putting nature of Gaara's smile. He'd turned into a good young man, but the sight was not something Ami was used to in the least. "What's happened?" something couldn't be right. A glance at the clock proved that it was the middle of the day when Gaara should have been working, and Ami was unable to shake the feeling that she had missed something important happen. "I must have been having a fever dream—I could have sworn that I heard people talk about you getting taken or something like that."_

 _Gaara frowned just a bit at the nervous laughter that followed her statement—noting that it was fairly obvious that she wanted to be corrected and proved wrong. The man only wished he could do that for her. "Ami, that wasn't a dream. The Akatsuki kidnapped me and extracted Shukaku. Naruto, Sakura, and several other ninja from Konaha rescued me…" upon seeing her eyes widen considerably, Gaara gingerly took her hands into his own. He wasn't quite sure how holding someone's hand was supposed to make him or her feel better but he had seen his sister do it several times before and it seemed to work._

 _The woman tilted her head and laughed again—a peal nervous, scared, soft laughter. "You… they… Shukaku can't be gone. You would have died in the extraction. And you're here! You're right here!" Ami's lip trembled at his next words—listening to him confirm that that had actually happened and go into more detail about the whole event. It hurt. Her heart hurt. Not caring that her eyes were watering up, not caring that tears were spilling down her face. A shinobi wasn't supposed to be weak and cry, but a keeper was also supposed to make sure that their charge didn't die—so Ami couldn't see the harm in failing in one more aspect of her career. "Gaara, I'm so sorry Gaara." All she had been taught and told since she was able to walk was that she was supposed to protect the young man next to her. It didn't matter how he acted, it didn't matter about anything else as long as he was alive and his demon didn't get out._

 _She had failed. She had failed the only purpose anyone had ever given her in life._

 _Gaara didn't know what to do, feeling his heart beat fast in worry as the woman before him cried. He hadn't had to deal with comforting a crying person before, much less one that happened to be someone he was close to. Gaara pulled his hands away from hers when he realized it wasn't helping at all; he sat in silence as she cried, watching in worry._

* * *

The Kazekage frowned as he stared out of the window—remembering the day Ami had woken up after her bout of pneumonia She had always seemed so put together before he saw her cry then, always carried herself with a demeanor of control. It scared him. It scared him that she cried. It scared him that she'd spent most of her life blindly trying to protect him even though it meant she'd probably die doing it. Her loyalty scared him. What had he done to deserve that loyalty?

Not a thing.

Regardless of that fact, he had to admit it was because of this blind loyalty that he'd been able to spend the majority of his life with Ami by his side, and that had to mean something good, right? Even if it frightened him, something good had come from it.

Both Ami and Gaara turned their heads towards the door as Kankuro walked in. The older brunette paused as he took in his younger brother's facial expression. Looking down towards the blonde that had become so much like the little sister he'd never particularly wanted, Kankuro asked the question at the forefront of his mind. "How come Gaara looks so pissy?"

Ami looked up from the chair she was sitting in, setting down the mission reports she'd been reading. While she'd finally started to feel comforted about what had happened about five years prior, Gaara had steadily become more agitated as the hours passed, to the point that he'd abandoned his paperwork and looked out the window instead. "I dunno—I think he's annoyed the council wants him to get married."

The brunette ninja frowned at the woman's statement before looking back to his brother. "Is that really the problem? They've been wanting you to get hitched for years." Promptly sitting himself down in the seat next to Ami, "Is something else going on?"

Gaara stayed quiet for a few more moments before finally speaking, looking briefly at Ami before deciding not to comment about his conflicting feelings about her loyalty. "I suppose I've just been thinking about who I would want to take as a wife, and what I'd want." It felt like a strange sentence as soon as he said it—who would have guessed that the infamous Gaara of the Sand would be considering getting married? A frown on his face as he looked back towards Ami, "Can I just marry you and get this all settled? That seems like the easiest solution." Despite his wish for love in a marriage, Gaara didn't particularly think he would have enough time as the Kazekage to go out and court some woman from a different village. Marrying someone he already knew would be far easier.

"As romantic as that proposal was Gaara, I don't think we should get married just because you want an easy solution." A sideways glance towards Kankuro as she heard the older man laugh, Ami looked back to Gaara with the frown. "Honestly it'd be best if you just stopped worrying about all this stuff. Love comes when you stop looking for it. If you worry about finding someone to spend the rest of your life with, then you'll be spending so much time worrying that you probably won't be able to find them."

Quick to nod his head, Kankuro leant forward in his chair, his elbows resting atop his knees, "Just focus on your job now Gaara, before everything else the council wants from you, including getting a wife, they want you to be a good Kazekage."

With an arch of his brow, and a frown on his face, Gaara turned over what she said in his mind and tried his best to understand it. The idea that if he stopped looking for something, the thing he wanted would come to him seemed quite illogical to the man who'd spent the better part of six years working hard for all his goals. Still, he was pretty sure he understood, "Thank you both, I'll try my best to do that."

* * *

Ami walked home that day, frowning heavily at the Kazekage. He hadn't spoken a word since the talk they had about marriage. She knew that worrying was in Gaara's nature, but she knew that it certainly was not productive when it distracted him to this extent. He hadn't finished his paperwork yet, and even though he said he'd do his best to abide by her and Kankuro's advice, it didn't seem they had really gotten through to them. "You can talk to me you know—even if this stuff is bothering you, you can talk to me about it." It was frustrating, honestly. They'd come so far in these past few years but when it came to matters of the heart like this, Gaara consistently froze her and almost everyone else out.

He didn't want to talk. Despite the fact that he knew he could trust Ami, it was still hard to bring himself to discuss the things that bothered him. Especially when it came to something so personal. Though that wasn't the main reason for his silence. The biggest reason was the simple fact that when he thought about getting married, his first thought continued to be Ami. It was infuriating really, to have to deal with this damned infatuation of his. Gaara considered himself a fairly logical man, and to be unable to logic himself out of something like this was frustrating. Despite the fact that his silence only seemed to be making Ami angry with him, he kept his mouth closed, not wanting to make himself feel more embarrassed than he already was and determined not to let Ami realize why he was being so quiet.

Really all he had to do to make sure she didn't figure out he was infatuated with her was stay silent forever.

He could probably do that.

The pair walked into the mansion, Ami rolling her eyes at Gaara's silence and walking ahead of the Kazekage—immediately veering towards the kitchen to start dinner. She kept a frown on her face as she brought out what was needed for the meal that night, frustrated with the fact that Gaara was acting like a child and the fact that since it was her turn to cook she couldn't just go train and blow off some steam.

Kankuro came into the house, hands in his pockets as he whistled a happy tune, not minding the fact that both Gaara and Ami looked. He paused for half a beat as he surveyed the ingredients on the counter before grinning wide. "Are we having Soba?" quick to come to the assistance of Ami and start chopping vegetables, Kankuro allowed the silence to continue for a few more minutes before finally speaking. "It's too quiet—does anyone have a story?"

There was a roll of Ami's eyes before she realized both brothers were looking towards her, "Fine, fine, let me think…" she drew a blank on what she could tell before remembering the story that served as a bedtime fable at her home village so long ago. "Okay so… Many years ago, there was a man called the Sage of the Six Paths. He lived during the time of the great ninja war, and dreamed of peace. One day, he sealed the ten-tailed demon inside himself, so no country or clan could claim it. Upon his death he split the demon into nine different demons and sent them away into the four main directions. Before he drew his last breath he passed his youngest son his wealth disregarding his first-born.

"What history tends to neglect is that the sage had many daughters. The youngest of them was the beautiful Aiko. She carried herself with dignity, and never lost a battle to another shinobi. She soon married a man called Minamoto Daisuke, from the Village Hidden in the Shadows. He brought her to his village where they started a family of their own. Aiko had a magnificent talent she learned from her father and could seal demons with ease. She taught their children this art of sealing so they could continue on with her father's dream of a demon free world. There were other demons besides the tailed ones. Some were relatively harmless; the most they could do was scare a child. Others were known to climb into a man's body and feed on his soul.

"The Village Hidden in the Shadows was once the most powerful village, and its country the most feared. Our country was the largest, our ninja's undefeatable, and our allies were extensive. The Minamoto's, my clan, were the leaders. We held the reigns and were revered. Our claim to power was simple. We were the demon keepers. Our village had a large temple that housed hundreds upon hundreds of scrolls that not only contained all of the information about demons, but the demons themselves. It was a well-known fact that without our clan in power, without our country in power, we could easily release the monsters out into the world.

"That well-known fact helped lead to our ruin. Our village was attacked and while we managed to defeat the invaders the temple was set on fire, and our power went up with smoke that came from the temple. The demons managed to escape, our country was devastated, and the other villages believed that we had released the beasts in a failed attack on them. They stole our land, and our credibility went with it. The country became smaller, and we were no longer a driving force. But my village rebuilt itself, and my clan recovered what it could of the scrolls, and did what it could to go back to normal.

"A new job was created after this incident. Or rather, a new meaning for 'Demon Keeper'. We would track down one of the hosts of the demons, send a representative of our clan to protect them, help them, and keep their monster under control." Finding herself at the end of her story, Ami looked up towards her audience and was rewarded with a stony expression on Gaara's face and Kankuro looking more confused and bored than anything else. The blonde shrugged as she piled food onto plates, "I've only got that story—I dunno what you both were thinking I'd talk about."

The dinner they had was fairly normal, with Gaara being slightly more quiet than usual. With a murmured 'thank you' for the dinner, the redhead was quick to clean off his plate, excuse himself and retreat back to his office.

Ami sighed and excused herself, taking a deep breath before walking into Gaara's office. Nothing would be solved by going in and yelling at him, she'd learned that a very long time ago. "What's going on with you?" she did her best to not let her frustration seep into her voice, giving Gaara a guilt trip wasn't her goal. More than anything she just wanted an explanation as to why he was acting like this. She'd begun to think it couldn't just be the fact the council had asked him to marry someone, and it had to be something else. There had to be another thing at play—every other time Gaara had been told this by the council he'd managed to brush it off after a few hours.

There was a long pause, as Gaara considered what to say. As much as he wished he could just avoid his feelings and this topic of his well being by just staying silent, that obviously wasn't a viable option at the moment. "I'm sorry." He stayed silent for a few more moments as he thought about whether or not he wanted to answer Ami's question before finally motioning for her to come towards where he sat in his armchair, Gaara waited to speak until Ami had sat down in front of him right at the edge of his desk, "I've been rude, and I apologize. But I don't think I'm quite ready to talk about what's been on my mind."

That wasn't the response she wanted—Ami had been hoping for an actual answer rather than Gaara dodging her question. Still, it wasn't as if she could force him to tell her what was going on. "Alright—you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." This didn't do much to quell the worry she was feeling, but Ami was happy at least with the fact that Gaara was talking to her once again. Perhaps she needed to just be happy with that. With a quiet sigh, Ami patted Gaara's hand gently, "I'll be here for you when you do want to talk, though. You don't have to keep whatever's going on to yourself forever, you know."

She brushed off the tinge of red on Gaara's face as him simply being unused to being touched, Ami hopped off his desk and retreated to the open door, "I'm going to go to my room, make sure you don't stay up too late Gaara." Offering him a small smile before walking away, Ami left Gaara to try and think of a new way to grapple with these frustrating feelings of his.


	4. Happy Birthday

It had been a hard week for Gaara. While he'd finally managed to put the issue of finding a wife aside for the moment, and was no longer imagining Ami as his spouse, he still couldn't shake the feeling of embarrassment. He'd prided himself on being calm and collected for the most part, and was quickly finding out that having romantic feelings for someone completely threw that out of the window. Not the mention the fact that because it was his closest companion that he had feelings for, which meant that he couldn't speak to her about it for advice or to unload his worries.

He'd spoken to Kankuro about it a little bit, which helped at first, but now he had a feeling that it was backfiring on him.

Gaara was one hundred percent sure that his brother had planned this. He'd left for a mission to Konoha leaving him alone with Ami for her birthday. Gaara sipped on his coffee as the sun rose, watching a small flock of birds outside of his kitchen window with a frown on his face.

On the bright side however, today was his day off, which he was more than grateful for. Ever since he had realized his feelings for Ami his sleeping patterns had been more erratic and poor than usual. So far there wasn't much of a problem with that, but he could tell that Ami was concerned as to what was going on, even if she was respecting his wishes and not pushing him to speak about it.

He set down his coffee and examined the new set of calligraphy brushes that was on the kitchen table, with a small frown on his face. It wasn't as if he thought the gift he'd gotten from her was bad, but he wasn't entirely sure how much use she'd get out of it. Ami did calligraphy in her spare time to work off stress that Gaara assumed stemmed from her job of protecting him, and already had quite a few brushes. Still, when this gift idea was compared to his first instinct to buy her jewelry, Gaara had a feeling that this would get much more use than some necklace she'd have no reason to wear.

The man stared at the clock as it passed by minute-by-minute, letting Ami sleep in for her birthday. Eventually he rose to make breakfast for him and Ami, making the traditional foods that he knew that she liked, rice, miso soup, several rolled omelets for the two of them before brewing a pot of green tea. Gaara set the table, looking over when he heard Ami pad into the kitchen, still in her pajamas, hair messed up, she looked more asleep than awake. "How come you're making breakfast? I thought it was my turn. Thank you though." With a yawn she walked over to the table and poured a cup of green tea for the both of them.

His brow wrinkled, Gaara wondering for a moment if he'd gotten the day wrong, or if Ami had simply forgotten that today was her birthday. The second seemed more possible, Ami could be a bit forgetful when it came to this type of thing. "It's your birthday, Ami." not even bothering to repress the chuckle that came up with the look of shock and surprise on her face "Did you really forget?" pulling out the chair for her to sit, happy to eat and spend time with her just the two of them.

"I guess I did." There was a small shrug of her shoulders; she'd never been one to make a huge deal out of her birthday, or to expect one. Before she'd moved to Suna, her home village didn't traditionally put much importance on birthdays, and Suna wasn't exactly the sort of village that encouraged excess and unnecessary parties. That all wasn't to mention the fact that for the majority of the past week, Ami had been preoccupied with trying to figure out what in the world was bothering Gaara so much. Sure, she'd told him it was all right that he didn't want to talk about it, but that didn't stop her from worrying about what was bothering him.

Maybe she'd just have to just wait it out until he wanted to tell her what was going on.

That thought didn't help much though. Ami had always been a fairly nervous person when it came to Gaara, and had been taught that assuming the worst in any given situation would mean that she'd be able to protect him better. When it came to problems like this, ones that most other people would think were small issues; Ami couldn't help but envision a worst-case scenario.

It was a habit that she was trying hard to quit now that she'd gotten older and realized that it wasn't a fruitful habit.

With three deep breaths, Ami attempted to quiet the part of her mind that was shouting out all the things that could be going wrong. "Are you feeling any better? I know you don't want to talk about it, but…" allowing her voice to trail off, the woman knew very well that Gaara was aware of how she worried about him, it didn't need to be stated.

"I'm doing better." Taking a sip of his green tea, Gaara found that not only did his stomach drop at her question, he managed to loose his appetite as well. She'd only been awake for a few minutes now, but Gaara got the sense that this birthday so far was not the happy affair he'd wanted it to be. Instead of dwelling on this subject and trying to figure out again how he was going to broach the topic of his feelings, Gaara decided to push the wrapped calligraphy across the table from him, towards where Ami sat. "Open this."

Ami wasn't honestly sure that he was, she'd noticed that he'd been sleeping even less these past few days. Still, she didn't want to push too hard for him to tell her what he was going through at the moment. With a sigh and a small frown on her face, Ami did her best to shove her feelings about the topic down, and opened the gift presented to her.

"A calligraphy set?" As she inspected the gift presented to her, Ami found herself smiling despite the feeling of anxiety she'd been experiencing. She had to admit, Gaara had a good instinct when he picked this out, she'd been eying some brushes similar to this for a while now. "Thank you Gaara." While this didn't make her feel better about all that was going on at the moment, it did give her something to feel excited about which would provide an excellent distraction.

For the rest of that day, on Ami's insistence that the two of them didn't have to do anything special, was fairly ordinary. Gaara finished up any paperwork that he needed to do, Ami practiced her calligraphy, and most of the day was spent relaxing.

Settled down in his office, Gaara tapped his pen on the surface of his desk. His main tactic for getting through this past week had been keeping himself busy, but now with nothing left to work on he found himself once again dwelling on his infatuation with Ami once more. With a pensive look on his face, Gaara pinched the bridge of his nose while he tried to focus his thoughts. Really, the biggest thing on his mind at the moment was the very simple fact that if he told her how he felt, and she didn't feel the same way, it wasn't just their friendship that would be at risk. Ami had stayed in Suna despite the chance to move back home after Shukaku had been extracted, to be his bodyguard. He didn't want to make her so uncomfortable that she would want to go back to her home.

This also wasn't to mention the simple fact that while he considered her a friend, their relationship was still very professional. It was rare for the two of them to be in a situation where Ami wasn't actively taking on the role of a bodyguard. Gaara was not entirely sure what it would be like to date her, when they so rarely spent time together just as friends, not as a bodyguard and her charge.

Sitting up straight, Gaara frowned for a moment as he thought of a way to fix that problem. The redhead Kazekage walked to Ami's room just as the sun was setting, Kankuro had mentioned that going out to dinner would probably be fitting since it was her birthday. "Get dressed Ami—and nicely, I mean. Not in your every day clothes. We're going out to eat in an hour." He let himself chuckle at the look of surprise on her face—it was rare that he was able to get that expression on her face.

Ami stared at the door even after he had closed it, what was he planning? Hopefully it wasn't going to be somewhere too extravagant—she didn't exactly have all that many fancy clothes. It wasn't like she needed them when most days of the year she was on duty as a bodyguard and needed to be ready to fight at any given moment. With a small frown on her face, Ami got up from the floor where she'd been practicing calligraphy, and walked over to her closet to look for a dress. It only took a few moments to locate a simple green sun-dress her mother had sent her a few years back. She shrugged and changed into that, slipping into some simple flat civilian shoes before pausing as she realized she had no weapons on her in this outfit.

Quick to strap a kunai holster to her upper thigh so she at least had something in case they were attacked, Ami adjusted the skirt of the green dress once more to hide her weapons, getting the sense that Gaara wouldn't be all too happy if he realized she had weapons on her.

Why did Gaara feel so nervous? This wasn't a real date, obviously, but Gaara had a feeling that if the two of them would be able to have an enjoyable time tonight when it was the two of them spending time as friends, not as bodyguard and Kazekage, it would be very indicative of their ability to spend time together in a romantic sense. The man smiled when he spotted her coming down the stairs, he hadn't seen Ami in a dress or a skirt even very often—and he had to admit that he liked it. The smile soon faded as he noticed the small bulge on the outside of her thigh, easily noticeable to a trained eye. "Do you really have to bring weapons with you?"

"I'm your guard Gaara—I always keep weapons on me." Ami gave him a cheeky grin as she walked over to him, tapping the kanji on his forehead with her index finger. "Someone's gotta keep you safe, but if you'd like I can bring my sword instead of the kunai?" Ami laughed as she watched the man roll his eyes before leading the way to the restaurant.

Gaara did his best not to smile when she laughed—he truly did. He couldn't help it though; her laughter had the strange effect of bringing a smile to his face almost no matter what. "Fine then, I don't know how you would fight in those shoes though—" chuckling when he looked back and saw her nose scrunch up at the comment. Most people, Ami especially, didn't seem to enjoy when it was pointed out that she'd overlooked something.

It was simple enough to choose which restaurant they ought to go to for dinner; Ami's favorite place was a traditional place right across from his office. He remembered a few years back when Kankuro had asked her why she liked such simple food and she had simply responded that it reminded her of her home village. Though that answer made him feel just a tad guilty about the fact Ami wasn't in her home village because she was with him, it was easy enough to oblige and go to the restaurant. The food was good, his company was nice to say the least, and as the night wore on Gaara realized that despite the fact their relationship was business most of the time, they could spend a night together casually and have a good time.

He wasn't entirely sure whether or not that made his choice any easier though. On one hand it indicated that if their relationship shifted towards something romantic, compared to the friendship and partnership, things could actually go fairly well. On the other hand this deprived him of his previous excuse of not telling Ami because he wasn't sure how they would work as a couple. So really, he had no reason not to tell her, right?

Perhaps he hadn't thought through this whole 'almost date' thing all the way through.

Both Ami and Gaara had an amazing time at dinner. It was rare enough that they went out for a meal, and even more rare that said meal wasn't spent talking about paperwork, the council, missions, or anything of the sort. To be able to relax and not worry about those matters, even if it was for a few hours was an amazing treat. For everyone else in the restaurant, the pair seemed almost unrecognizable. They were used to seeing Ami and Gaara together of course, but rarely did they see the blonde not on her guard, and without her weapons. Gaara seemed even more unusual, it wasn't that their beloved Kazekage never smiled, but he rarely smiled so wide, and hardly ever laughed like he was now.

Neither bodyguard or charge noticed that they'd lost track of time, it wasn't until their waitress politely informed them the restaurant was closing that they realized all the other patrons had finished their meals and left.

As the two walked back to the mansion, Ami couldn't help but smile as the lanterns that lined the streets lit up strand by strand. The stars above them seemed especially bright that night, with a half moon rising over the city's walls. It was simply beautiful. "This has to be one of the best birthday's I've ever had. Thank you Gaara." She flashed him a bright smile, it wasn't until this day where they managed to relax for the entire time that she'd really figured out how much she'd been stressing out lately.

This had proven to be a nice reprieve from everything that had going on the past few days. Ami tilted her head up to look at the stars that dotted the night sky before speaking once again, "I can't believe we're all grown up—it seems like just yesterday that we were just meeting." Not that their first introduction had gone particularly well, Ami seemed to remember Gaara being very determined to murder her. Though that didn't need to be mentioned at the moment.

The woman was more than grateful that they were walking at night and he wouldn't be able to see the blush that she was almost one hundred percent sure was on her cheeks. It was hard in situations like this to keep from telling him about her feelings. It made her think that they could possibly work out, that they could be together, when normally she was pretty sure that they couldn't.

As nice of a man he was, Gaara was horrible with emotions. Ami had been there almost every single time that one of his fan girls had confessed their love to him and every single time he'd frozen up and been unable to give a proper answer. When he came back to his senses he spent the rest of the day in what she referred to as a "Mute Panic", silent and flustered because he wasn't used to such an outright display of affection. None of this was to mention that their communication skills as a pair weren't that great, Ami found herself too proud to tell him the whole truth when it came to her emotions at times, and Gaara had spent the majority of his formative years believing that any emotion besides anger led to weakness. Between the two of them having an open conversation about emotions was almost impossible.

Gaara glanced down at her, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards, "I'm glad you had a good time, I was afraid today would be too simple. I'm not that good at planning big parties like Temari or Kankuro." The Kazekage walked her to where they lived, holding open the door for her to let them both in. The man stared down at her after he had closed the door, surprised to find himself wanting very much to kiss her or tell her how she felt. He wanted to do anything with her if it would make her smile. The man remembered how it felt whenever they accidentally brushed hands or touched and got the strangest sense that kissing would be even nicer than that.

He found himself unconsciously leaning in to kiss her after pondering whether or not he should for so long. Realizing what he was doing about halfway into leaning in, Gaara wrapped his arms around her in an impromptu hug, not really sure what else to do in his panic. A hug would most definitely be better received compared to a random kiss. He pulled himself away without any warning, uncertain as to how to really end this evening on a proper note. Feeling just a bit awkward, Gaara patted Ami on the shoulder before walking away, telling her goodnight and happy birthday over her shoulder as he retreated back to his room.

Ami stood in that spot for a few moments as he walked away, very much confused about what had just happened. Seeing the man she had feelings for rush up the stares like rabid animals were chasing him, she stayed quiet for a few moments before finally speaking. "Goodnight…?"


	5. Date Night

Gaara had a problem. He wanted very much to be with Ami romantically. He wanted to hold her, kiss her, make her happy, make her laugh, be there when she was sad, be there when she was angry, be there for every single moment in her life. As it stood, technically he would be there for those moments, but there was a drastic difference between him being there as a good friend and charge, and him being there as a lover or a boyfriend.

For now though, he couldn't bring himself to tell her about his feelings. Call it nerves, call it cowardice, call it whatever you may—whenever Gaara tried to breach the topic, he found himself both flustered and frustrated.

He couldn't see any conceivable way that Ami would have feelings for him. Gaara's only experience with romance thus far was with the girls in his village who had crushes on him. While most of these young women were kind enough and capable ninjas, he'd found that most of their attraction to him had been fairly shallow, and they tended to act rather fanatical whenever he came near.

Ami wasn't like that. She wasn't anything like that. She was down to earth, she was grounded, she was calm most times but she was a fighter for what she believed in. The man was also quite fond of the fact that she'd never been really been scared of him, and he knew for a fact that if he did something wrong, or if he stepped out of line she would call him out. It was comforting for some reason. Perhaps it was because as the Kazekage he'd found himself surrounded by sycophantic yes-men, and finding someone who told him their true opinion was like a fresh drink of water.

Sometimes it involved him getting yelled at by the smaller blonde woman, but he'd be dammed if he didn't like that she treated him like an equal and always had. Even when they were younger and he was for lack of a better phrase near psychopathic, she would stand her ground.

But that was all off track, none of that was important. Gaara currently found himself reeling, and struggling to keep an outwardly calm appearance, eyes scanning a document sent to him by the council but not able to really read what was in front of him.

While Gaara hadn't been particularly convinced of the fact that Ami reciprocated feelings for him, he hadn't quite taken in account the possibility that she might have feelings for someone else besides him. Now though, he suddenly found the fact that she very well could shoved right into his face. Feeling his stomach sinking once again as he thought about what had just happened, Gaara couldn't help but relive the scene and try to figure out how he hadn't seen this coming.

 _Coming into work in the mornings was probably Ami's least favorite part of the day. Gaara was usually up and about around dawn, and at work an hour after so he could get a head start on whatever papers or documents he would need to finish before his meetings that day. While it was easy enough for Gaara to get up so early because of his insomnia, Ami found it much more difficult with her actually wishing to sleep. Because of this, it wasn't unusual for her to shuffle in behind Gaara, eyes half closed, and nursing a travel cup of coffee as the work day started._

 _Normally on a day like this, Ami and Gaara would go into his office uninterrupted, Ami would either help him read through some documents, or would work on her letters to her family. However, today seemed determined to start off on another note. As Gaara and Ami walked into the building, they found Itetsu, one of the jonin leaning against the wall outside Gaara's office._

 _Gaara was the first to notice the man, seeing as he was certainly more awake than his bodyguard at the moment. Perhaps he'd have to give her more time to wake up before they left, Gaara had a feeling she wouldn't be much use as a guard as it stood. Though that wasn't entirely important at the moment, compared with the strange sight of one of his jonin appearing many hours before they usually did. "Itetsu? What in the world are you doing here?"_

" _Ah! Lord Kazekage, I just got back in from my mission, I wanted to give you my mission report before I went back home." Well, that wasn't his entire reason, but it was his best excuse. Besides, what he had in mind would probably go better without the pressure of a full office around him. With a smile he handed in his report before directing his attention to Ami, "Is it alright if I speak to you for a moment in private, Ami?"_

 _Her brow scrunched together in confusion, Ami was starting to wake up a bit more as the coffee kicked in, but her mind couldn't quite conceive of a reason as to why he'd want to talk to her at the moment. Regardless, she gave Gaara a nod, watching him walk into his office before returning her attention to the man before her. "What's up, Itetsu?"_

" _I was wondering if—" he paused, not sure if he should be diving so quickly into the heart of the matter, before deciding that it was better to do just that rather than dilly dally around and lose his nerve. "I was wondering if you'd like to go on a date with me tonight."_

 _Instantly, Ami found herself wishing that he'd waited to ask her when she was more awake. Though, she doubted he'd anticipated that she wouldn't be. Perhaps it was the fact she was tired and couldn't think of a polite way to say no, or maybe it was simply the fact that she wasn't sure where she stood in regard to whether or not she should tell Gaara about her feelings. Either way, Ami found herself nodding, "Sure, that sounds like fun. If you'd like, we can meet in front of this building about seven?"_

 _A wide grin was quick to spread across Itetsu's face, nodding eagerly at Ami's words, "Of course! It sounds like a plan! I'll see you then!" walking off with a spring in his step, Itetsu left behind a tired Ami wondering just what she'd agreed to, and Gaara sitting wide eyed at his desk, having overheard everything._

Now, Gaara felt himself suffering through a variety of emotions. The foremost being confusion with just a bit of anger towards himself. If he hadn't put off telling Ami, this might have not happened. It wasn't as if he could blame her for dating someone when he hadn't told her how he felt. Dropping the paper's he'd been looking over back onto the desk, Gaara did his best not to frown too much as he spoke to Ami. "So— if you don't mind my asking, does this mean that you have feelings for Itetsu?" Inwardly, the man cringed just a bit, there was probably a better way he could have said that, but he'd never been all that great at semantics, and he doubted Ami would care too much.

A bit surprised at the random line of questioning, it took Ami a moment to figure out how to phrase her answer. "I don't have feelings for him exactly, but if I were to date someone, I think that he and I would work out alright. He's a nice guy, I enjoy spending time with him, at the very least I think that we'd have a good time." There was a small laugh from the blonde as she shrugged, "Mostly, I think I was a bit too surprised to say no."

There was a nod from Gaara, that proved to be a bit comforting, though he still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about all of this. The word nervous came to mind. Regardless of his own feelings, he wasn't going to discourage her from going out—more than any feelings that he held for her, Gaara wanted Ami to be happy, and he knew that wouldn't happen if he discouraged her from living her own life. Gathering his wits, Gaara picked up the documents he'd just set down and leafed through them once again—finding that he still wasn't able to focus enough to really read what they were about. "Well, I hope you have a good time."

That night with Itetsu was fun enough Ami supposed, but she didn't feel anything towards the man. Itetsu was nice, kind, outgoing, she loved having him as a friend, but as a romantic partner she couldn't see it. Ami felt more awkward than anything else, wishing that she hadn't agreed to the date. Even if she'd had a good time, this date really only proved to her that agreeing to go on a date with someone she was on the fence about wouldn't go well. The brunet jonin smiled down at her when they finally got to the mansion. "I had a wonderful time tonight Ami! We should do this again huh?"

"Look Itetsu…" pausing to try and think of what to say, Ami was quiet for a few moments, "I'm sorry, I don't think we should go on another date. If you'd like to spend time together as friends I'd like that, but I don't think we should do this again in a romantic sense."

Itetsu did his best to not look too disappointed at this reaction, "No, don't be sorry. Sometimes these things just don't work out." Chuckling nervously, he continued to speak before excusing himself, "I'd love to keep being your friend. Thank you. Have a nice night Ami."

The blonde woman watched for a little bit as her date rushed off—frowning a bit. While she wanted nothing more than to move past her unfortunate crush on Gaara and continue living her life, it would seem that she'd either need to admit her feelings to him, or give them enough time to completely subside before dating other people would be a viable option. She shook her head before walking inside, Ami kicked off her shoes before closing the door. Calling out to Gaara and Kankuro as she headed up to her room, Ami announced herself. "I'm home from my date! Going to take a bath alright?" The woman stripped off and ran the hot water, filling up the bathtub before getting in and allowing herself to relax after what had proved to be a very long day.

Kankuro sat on Gaara's bed next to his younger brother, arms crossed as he frowned at him. "Let me get this straight. You've got a crush on Ami, but instead of telling her you decided that keeping quiet was a better idea, and now she's going out on dates?" questioning Gaara's reasoning for all of this nonsense he pursed his lips. Maybe he ought to write Temari about this stuff, she'd probably have a good idea as to what they should do in this situation. While Ami hadn't told him outright whether or not she had feelings for his brother, Kankuro couldn't shake the feelings that she did. "Look, just talk to her about this—then you can get an answer about how she feels. If she likes you back, great! It means you two can be together. If not, then that's good too—you can move on. You're both adults, if she doesn't feel the same it'll work out alright Gaara."

The redhead looked towards the door, a bit worried that Ami had heard what his brother had said. Hearing the water running he relaxed slightly. "I want her to be happy Kankuro. Besides, what was I supposed to do? Interrupt him while he was asking her out and tell her that she should date me instead? This isn't some tacky romance novel." frowning just a bit as he watched his older brother roll his eyes, Gaara leant back in his chair and crossed his arms, "Point taken though. I'll tell her soon, I just want to figure out how." Nodding to his brother as the older man excused himself and left the room, Gaara began to massage his temples to try and rid himself of the headache he was getting.

Gaara was starting to think that having feelings for Ami was going to be his ruin. He wasn't able to pay attention during meetings; he wasn't able to think of anything else besides Ami. He felt like he was in actual pain whenever he thought about her being with someone else. Feeling something strange well up within him, Gaara groaned softly. The Kazekage felt the same way he did when he was a young child and saw happy families on the street. How he used to feel when he saw people going out with their friends when he had neither a happy family or any friends. There weren't many things he hated, but this feeling of jealousy was certainly one of them.

Ami got dressed into her pajamas, tempted to just head straight to bed but deciding that visiting Gaara and checking in on him was probably the best idea. The woman knocked on the closed door. "Gaara? I'm coming in." opening the door and smiling at him, Ami stood before him as he sat on his bed. It was hard to control the worry she was still feeling about him. He looked almost ill lately. He had been getting less sleep; he hadn't been eating much at all. If she didn't know better she'd say it was some sort of stress doing this to him, but she couldn't think of what would be causing it.

She was worried about him. Ami reached out and held one of his hands in hers, smiling at him very softly. "You've been looking pretty sick lately, do you want to take tomorrow off?" this probably all had to do with whatever had been making him act so strange earlier—though it must have escalated going by how he'd been acting the past few days.

"No, that wouldn't be a good idea. I've got to meet with the council tomorrow, remember?" offering her a half hearted smile, eager to change the subject, "How was your date?"

Ami released his hand, seating herself next to him on the bed, "It was alright, but we won't be going out again. We're better off as friends, I think." She offered Gaara a smile, hoping that once all of these things got sorted out—her feelings for him, whatever had been making him act so strange these past few weeks—that everything would go back to normal. It was terrible watching him going through whatever had been weighing on him so heavily, and Ami couldn't wait for it to be over.

It was hard to not feel happy at the fact she didn't want to go out with Itetsu again, though the feeling of guilt at his initial reaction of joy helped a bit. "Well, if that's what you want." Honestly, Gaara wasn't entirely sure how to react in this situation. Or at the very least, how to react appropriately. So, when Ami nodded and wished him a goodnight, Gaara stayed silent and let her leave without comment, before falling back onto his bed, pinching the bridge of his nose and letting out a long sigh. In his heart he knew that this couldn't go on much longer without telling Ami how he felt, but in his mind he couldn't stop worrying about how him admitting his feelings would be received.

 _Howdy everyone! Thanks for sticking with me so far! I hope y'all are liking this revival of the story, and I promise that it's going to start getting really exciting soon! If you've read this far, I'd love it if you could review! I would really appreciate some feedback!_


	6. The first step is communication

Ami felt good. She had finally convinced Gaara to take a few days off from work—with the backing of the counsel who had also noticed that he had seemed either very stressed or sick for the past few weeks. Temari had managed to come in from Konoha after both Ami and Kankuro wrote to her about how Gaara seemed to be under a lot of strain. The letters were quite different however, with Ami unable to tell what was bothering Gaara because he had refused to speak with her about it, and Kankuro being able to tell Temari exactly what was going on.

With Temari back, it almost seemed as if things were back to the way they used to be. Both of her brothers and Ami were happy for her, being able to move to Konoha and live with her husband Shikamaru. However, that didn't quite change the fact that it was a very big shift from the way things used to be, and they still needed some time to get used to the change, especially since it hadn't been more than three months since the wedding.

At the moment however, Temari and Kankuro were out and about taking care of the meetings and errands that Gaara was supposed to do, leaving him behind at home to get some much needed rest.

Ami walked over to his room and let herself in, chuckling when she saw him reading, his face scrunched up in what she was almost certain was annoyance at being made to stay home for a day. "What's wrong Gaara? Angry that you can't be going to meetings with people that you don't like and do boring paperwork?" she rolled her eyes as his expression only grew more annoyed at her words.

Honestly, she could understand why he didn't enjoy being made to stay home, but her sympathy had started to run out, with annoyance and frustration taking its place. It wasn't as if she wanted him to be under whatever stress was causing all of this, but she couldn't help but feel that it wouldn't have escalated to this level if he'd told her about whatever it was that was bothering him. If he would do that then surely they could figure out how to fix it together.

"I don't understand why so many of you think I'm sick. There is nothing wrong with me at all." Dog-earing his page in the book—repressing the urge to snap at her. He already felt bad enough about the fact that this situation had gotten so out of hand, the fact that Ami and Kankuro had convinced Temari that she needed to come back home on his behalf didn't help, and certainly being made to stay home only made things worse.

The woman gave the man before her an incredulous look, "Really? There's nothing wrong with you? Don't lie to me Gaara, there's definitely something wrong with you!" she took a moment, squeezing her eyes shut and tried to take a deep breath to calm down.

Now wasn't a good time to snap at him, even though she certainly wanted to. Ami sat herself down next to him on the bed, "Look, I'm not just your keeper—I'm your friend. But it's hard to look out for you, as a friend or as a keeper, when you won't talk to me about something that's wrong! There's got to be at least a little bit of communication for us to function, Gaara!" she sucked in a breath, Ami quickly found that despite her wish to be calm it was near impossible to do so. It would seem that all the frustration and worry from the past few weeks was finally bubbling to the surface.

Gaara stared at her for a few moments, feeling the words he wanted to say simply get stuck in his throat. Why was this so hard? He was the Kazekage and he couldn't tell a woman that he had feelings for her. He had faced demons; S-ranked criminals, his dead father and he couldn't talk about a simple crush. If he wanted to be introspective, Gaara would note the fact that the issue seemed to go beyond him simply being afraid of her reaction. More likely than that would be that the true problem lied with him being afraid to open up. Still, after several nights in a row of more sleep deprivation than usual, Gaara didn't entirely feel like being introspective. Nor did he feel like being lectured at by someone who wasn't that great at communicating either.

Sure, he hadn't told her what was really bothering him, but she hadn't told him how much that had been weighing on her mind, which really just led him to believe that neither of them were good at talking about how they felt. Still, he didn't want to tell her that. Gaara's gut reaction told him that doing so would be more likely to start a fight than anything else.

Ami had a point though; this was getting out of control. Perhaps coming clean would help him focus and get back to his normal self. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Gaara steeled himself for what he was about to say and the possible consequences of it. "It's not a huge problem—it's all just gotten out of hand." He looked towards her, and realized that he wouldn't be able to put this off any longer. "I have feelings of a… romantic nature for you, and it has been hard to deal with for a variety of reasons. I apologize, I didn't mean for this to happen, I thought that if I let it be for long enough that the feelings would go away, but that approach did not work like I hoped it would. "

Ami stared at him wide eyed for a very long time—processing what he just said. "You… wait… what?" running a hand through her hair, he felt the same way? She had known him, protected him, been friends with him for years and she hadn't known that he had feelings for her. For a moment she wondered if she really knew Gaara as well as she thought that she did.

She'd long thought about how she would react if her feelings for Gaara were reciprocated, and she'd believed that her first outward reaction would be happiness. Now that it was occurring though, Ami found that her feelings were mixed. Sure, it was a good thing that Gaara had feelings for her as well, but the fact that said feelings were behind the frustration of the past few weeks made her more annoyed than anything else. Realizing she had been silent for far too long, and that Gaara was staring at her expectantly, Ami finally brought herself to speak, "I feel the same way Gaara." The relief he felt was visible, with Ami able to see him relax.

The redhead didn't really know how to react to all of this; he'd been too cautious about getting his hopes up to really consider what they would do if she felt the same way. Feeling frozen almost, Gaara tried to decide on what to do. His face pinched in thought, Gaara found himself quite aware of the fact that despite they both had feelings for each other, that didn't change their lack of communication in this matter. Finally, Gaara rested his hand atop Ami's, not quite able to muster up the courage for more contact than that.

"What do we do now?" he felt almost foolish for asking it, Gaara had a sense that in most cases you weren't supposed to ask that and instead you and your romantic interest were supposed to glide worry free into being in a relationship. In this case however, it didn't seem like it would be that easy. Their relationship thus far was more business oriented than anything else, even if it did originate from Ami wanting to protect him. This wasn't to mention the simple fact that the whole reason they admitted their feelings to one another was because their lack of commutation up to that point had forced them to. That certainly didn't seem very healthy to Gaara, which was probably saying something with his lack of experience in that area.

Ami squeezed his hand as she thought, "Honestly, I'm not all that sure." Her brow furrowed as she thought, she knew what she wanted, more than anything she wanted to be with him, but Ami didn't want to ignore everything that had just happened. She looked at him with a small frown, taking in the bags under his eyes. It was still a bit surprising to her that this entire situation had snowballed so far. Ami hadn't seen Gaara look so tired since the last Kage Summit, and it pained her to see him like again over something like this. "Honestly Gaara, I think we could be together, but I think we'll also have to work on some stuff. Before any of that though, you have to get some rest. I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but you look like hell. We'll have to talk about this stuff, but I think more than anything else you need some rest."

He felt like hell, though he wasn't about to admit that. Gaara had the distinct feeling that a nap was in his immediate future. Using his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, the man gave a small nod in response to Ami's words. "That sounds like a good idea." The thought that he'd have to start being more upfront about his emotions was a bit daunting, but Gaara allowed himself to put off that for a little while. Sleeping would probably help him think a bit better as well, or at the very least it would make the discussion that lied in store much easier than it would be in his current state.

As Ami readied herself to stand up to leave and allow him to get some rest, Gaara found himself squeezing her hand gently, "Would you mind staying?" he could literally feel his cheeks begin to flush as he spoke—there was something about this that made him feel strangely vulnerable. It certainly wasn't the most pleasant sensation, but Gaara was determined to muster through it. To say that he wasn't great at communicating or showing affection was an understatement, and he was able to readily accept that about himself. Both things made him more uncomfortable than he liked to admit, but if he was going to be with Ami Gaara knew very well that now was the time to start working on getting over both of those things.

The best way to do just that was to start facing his fears, and allowing himself to be vulnerable to Ami seemed like the perfect place to start.

It was easy to see the surprise on her face at the question— in all the years that she'd known him, Gaara had always been a very private and cautious person. Which meant that when it came to him sleeping when he was essentially defenseless, he didn't like for people to be around him. Even Ami as his bodyguard was typically asked to guard the door, rather than be in the same room as him. She wondered for a moment why he was asking her this before deciding that it didn't matter all that much compared to the show of trust he was displaying at the moment. "Sure—I can stay if you want me to. You've got to go to sleep though, alright?"

There was a nod from Gaara as he laid down on his bed, quick to find that he was so tired that he'd begun to drift off as soon as his head hit the pillow. Initially he had believed that he would be at least a bit uncomfortable or feel too vulnerable to fall asleep quickly with her there. However he found himself more comforted than anything else, and managed to fall asleep with a smile as Ami laid her hand atop his head and gently ran it through his hair.

For a bit, Ami felt just a bit strange as she watched Gaara fall asleep. It didn't take her long to realize that this was the first time she'd seen him do just that. Honestly it almost seemed strange. She was used to the Gaara who worked like crazy, who spent most of his days in council meetings. To see him looking peaceful was like watching a storm roll into the Sand Village, beautiful but just the slightest bit disconcerting.

At the moment, she did her best to disregard that thought. After their conversation, as Ami looked back to what had been happening the past few weeks was beginning to piece together like a puzzle. The way he had reacted to the council pushing him to get married. How he had seemed almost upset when she'd accepted that date with Itetsu. What had happened when they'd gotten back from her birthday dinner. That event in particular made much more sense. Originally she'd gotten the sense that he'd been about to kiss her, but had disregarded that thought as nonsense. Now though she had a feeling that she'd been correct.

Ami couldn't exactly discuss the topic with Gaara at the moment however, not when he was finally getting some rest. For now she made herself be content with leaning back against the headboard, her hand resting atop Gaara's head, and Ami letting herself drift off into a half-sleep.

Temari didn't know what she expected when she walked into her youngest brother's room, but Gaara asleep with Ami dozing off next to him was definitely not it. She knew how light of a sleeper both of the couple could be, so the eldest sand sibling did her best to keep her voice down as she motioned Kankuro to come over to her, "Kankuro! I think they might be together!" it wasn't in Temari's nature to make assumptions, but she really couldn't think of any other reason that Gaara and Ami would be like this. Sure, they were pretty close, but given Gaara's propensity to keep people at an arm's length and Ami's natural inclination to let things be, the two of them deciding to nap together for no real reason seemed quite unlikely.

For now, despite the fact that she wasn't able to confirm or deny her suspicions, she found herself relaxing just a bit. It was hard being away from Suna, even if it meant she was now with the man that she loved, her natural predisposition to worry about her brothers and her friends here had not gone away. When she'd gotten the letters from Kankuro and Ami, it certainly didn't help that much. Regardless, the thought that everything would be alright soon helped to soothe her worries quite a bit, though she wondered if this would mean that Ami might stop being his bodyguard or if their professional relationship would have to change to accommodate a romantic one. Deciding that it was a bit too premature to be considering these possibilities, Temari nudged Kankuro towards the door to make sure he got a good look at the pair on the bed.

The brunette man peered in, seeing Gaara and Ami together he smiled wide "Seriously? That's great!" He let out a soft laugh as he saw Ami's head shoot up, her expression one of weary annoyance with just a tad bit of embarrassment. He didn't feel the need to acknowledge that fact however, and pressed onward, "Are you two together now or something?"

Ami did not attempt to hide the glare on her face, though she did do her best to keep her voice down. Like herself, Gaara was a very light sleeper and she certainly didn't want to wake him up right when he was finally getting some rest. She also didn't want to let his siblings wake him up yet either. She took care to keep her voice soft, hardly above a whisper, "It's complicated." Her frown only deepened as she watched the two siblings roll their eyes—sure that obviously wasn't the answer they wanted, but it was the truth. "We're going to talk about it later. After he gets some sleep."

Kankuro felt that was more of a cop out than anything else, though he couldn't say he was terribly surprised that they'd put off talking about it given their lack of will to talk in the first place. Regardless, he was still happy to hear that at least some headway had been made with this whole fiasco, and hoped that soon enough this entire thing would be part of the past. He was more inclined to let people sort things out themselves, but Gaara and Ami had been so terrible at doing just that that he'd found himself very tempted to jump in and intervene.

It was nice to know that it wouldn't be necessary.

He flashed Ami a grin, despite the annoyance he'd felt these past few weeks towards the duo, at the end of the day he still approved. Kankuro considered Ami a good friend and he knew that she'd have Gaara's best interests at heart, especially if they began a relationship. "Good job. We'll leave you two alone." With a small nudge of his elbow to his sister's side, Kankuro walked away from the doorway and back downstairs with Temari quick to follow.

Ami watched as Temari slowly and quietly closed the door before leaving with her brother, and let out a long sigh. The reaction of Gaara's siblings hadn't been something on the forefront of her mind, but now that she saw them react positively to what was going on she felt a large and surprising sense of relief. Despite being friends with Gaara for a relatively short period of time when compared to how long she'd been protecting him, Ami had been friends with Temari and Kankuro longer. When they were young, Gaara had done his best to ignore her after he realized that he probably wouldn't be able to kill her. Temari and Kankuro on the other hand had been fairly friendly, though as Ami looked back on it she had a feeling they were only doing that because they'd thought that she'd end up getting murdered by their younger brother and felt bad for her. Even though she was closest to Gaara, she still cared what the two of them thought, and wanted them to approve. From what she saw, it appeared that they did.

She cast a glance down at the still sleeping Gaara, thinking back to how much things had changed. If she'd been told as a little girl when she'd begun looking after Gaara that the two of them would develop feelings for each other she would have laughed. As much as it pained her to admit this, she had been of the popular opinion that Gaara wasn't able to get close to people.

It was surprising really, how much things could change over the years.

Time passed quickly enough, with Gaara staying asleep for a few more hours and Ami dozing on and off by his side. Soon enough Temari was calling upstairs that it would be time to eat in just a little bit, and the duo were found themselves stirring awake. Despite Gaara being more deeply asleep, Ami seemed just a bit more disoriented when she jolted awake, having hardly been asleep in the first place. Thinking at first that something was wrong, Ami almost fell out of the bed in her rush to get into a defensive position. Gaara was quick to grab her arm to make sure she didn't roll off. "It's just Temari. Don't worry." Her reaction didn't surprise him at all, it was fairly typical for her to do that when she woke up.

When he was certain that she'd come to enough and that she wouldn't roll off the bed, Gaara released her arm and sat up, rubbing his eyes and stifling a yawn. Despite having been asleep for what he was pretty sure was a few hours he didn't feel all that groggy like he'd expected. He felt more alert than he had when he'd gone to bed, which really just made him think that napping had been the right choice. Although he sensed that he would need to get multiple good night's sleep to feel all the way back to normal, this seemed like a good place to start. "I think you were right about getting some sleep, Ami."

"I was?" her words were almost drowned out by the sound of her yawning, still just a bit confused. For the most part she hadn't been quite aware that she'd been asleep in the first place, and when she'd awoken it had been just a bit difficult to realize what room she was in simply because she'd never slept in Gaara's room before. Still, once his words sink in Ami grinned just a bit—it was good to know that not only was she right, but that her advice had helped.

Once Ami woke up a bit more she rolled out of the bed and stretched, finding herself just a bit embarrassed by the fact that her first reaction upon waking was to think that they were being attacked. Perhaps she'd have to start working on that. Regardless she flashed Gaara a wide grin, holding out her hand to help him out of bed, "So I take it you're feeling better then?"

With a nod, Gaara reached out and took her hand, pulling himself out of bed. He wondered if this ought to be more awkward since they'd told one another how they felt, but like most of his conversations with Ami everything right now felt normal. "It did, I think I'll probably need to get a few more good nights sleep though to get all the way back to normal." He frowned just a bit—honestly he wasn't sure how long the conversation they needed to have would be, and he wasn't certain if he should bring it up now while they still had a few minutes, or wait until after dinner. "Should we—should we talk now?"

"Yeah—we can talk about it now, if you'd like." The smile on her face faded just a bit as she thought. "I think we can be together, I don't think it'll be necessarily easy because we work together, but I think if we try hard to communicate I think it ought to work out." Seeing Gaara nod at her statement made her feel a bit better, though she felt compelled to bring up something that had occurred to her earlier.

She had seen the list of women that the counsel had suggested for Gaara to court, all of them were from very prestigious clans and large villages that could result in wonderful treaties. Her village barely had five hundred inhabitants, and was still hated by most of the larger five villages who still clung to the belief that her village had attacked them all those years before. The Sand Village and the Leaf Village were notable exceptions, but her village still wasn't all that popular. She wasn't entirely certain how the council would react to the fact that Gaara hadn't gone with their choice and had instead gone with a woman who wouldn't provide the illustrious connections that someone else could. "I think we might face a little difficulties from the council though—I'm not exactly their top pick of the draft for you."

Gaara stayed silent for a few moments as he thought, this had been something he'd been wondering as well, though it was nice to know that he wasn't the only one considering what the council's reaction would be, "I think we should tell them that we are together. To be honest though, I don't care all that much as to what they think. I know several of the counsel members would rather that I was with you than for me to continually reject every single woman they say that I should be with, which is what's been normal for the past few years." He smiled when he heard her chuckle softly at his words, knowing full and well that she was perfectly aware of how difficult he'd made things for the council in this matter. "We will make it work. Don't worry about that Ami. Tomorrow morning we can go into the council and tell them what's happening between the two of us. For the moment we don't need to worry about it all that much."

There was a small nod from the woman—that sounded like the best plan that they could come up with at the moment. At the end of the day while the council could bother Gaara quite a bit on certain matters, they couldn't forbid them from dating even if the entire group disapproved of it. "That sounds like a good idea—I don't think there's much else we could do besides that."

"So does this—" Gaara cut himself off, feeling foolish and embarrassed for asking something that he was pretty sure most people wouldn't need to. Then again neither he nor Ami were most people, and his lack of experience in this field made him a bit worried about presuming things. Just because they had feelings for one another didn't necessarily mean that they were dating "Does this mean that we're together? Or does it not work like that?"

Ami couldn't help but laugh just a little bit, amused that he was deferring to her opinion on this sort of thing when she barely had more experience in this field then he did. Her first date had been just a few days prior after all. "Yeah—I mean, if you want to be together, then we should be together." She pressed a kiss to his cheek as she heard Kankuro call up that dinner was finally ready. She had a feeling that there was a longer discussion in store for them, but for now this seemed like a good place to leave things.

With their combined lack of experience in regards to communication, Ami didn't expect for them to magically get better at talking all of a sudden. That being said she still felt like they were on track for a good start. She hoped that as long as they continued to be candid with one another, all would work out for the best. For now though, they needed to wait for just a bit longer. Ami had a feeling that if they kept both Temari and Kankuro waiting that the elder siblings would have no problem eating all the food prepared, leaving Ami and Gaara to make their own dinner. "For now though, let's just get something to eat. Everything else can happen in due time."

Gaara rubbed his cheek where she had pressed a kiss to it, giving just a bit of a sheepish nod—he'd probably have to get used to such overt displays of affection. At the moment he was content to be led downstairs, allowing the worries that he'd been piling on himself for the past few weeks to fade away.


End file.
